The present invention relates to a rapid action clamping element for locking and fixedly positioning latch element and other components on an apertured rail or slot track.
Clamping elements of the type to which the invention pertains are used in aircraft particularly for fastening, for example, pieces of freight or chairs to the floor. Herein it is customary to use rails which, for example, are provided with a longitudinal slots having local widenings so that, in top elevation, the rail appears to have a sequence around apertures which however are interconnected by a narrower through-opening. These rails or tracks are usually placed into the floor so that the upper surface is more or less flush with the remainder of the floor or slightly recessed.
The clamping elements, used for fastening equipment to the rails, have mushroom shaped posts which are fixedly positioned in the clamping element and in addition axially adjustable cylindrical posts are provided as lateral constraint. The posts and here particularly the mushroom shaped posts are arranged corresponding to the aperture pattern in the rail so that the "mushroom" heads of the posts can easily pass through appropriately spaced widened portions in the rail and to be clamped under the narrower portions which extend between adjacent two round apertures or bores of the rail trade. The cylindrical posts are used to position the respective clamping device in longitudinal direction, and one uses here customarily two such cylindrical posts having a distance which also is an integral multiple of the aperture pattern in the rail. They just lock the respective clamping element in that once inserted they cannot be displaced longitudinally because the respective cylindrical posts have a wider diameter than the narrow slot portion in between two apertures, while on the other hand, the mushroom shaped posts have a stem whose diameter is sufficiently small to pass along the through portion of the aperture arrangement in the rail. A typical clamping element used in the prior art is disclosed in German printed patent application No. 2,556,000.